Kyoko Murase “Only Yesterdays” at
Dates: Dec 21, 2024 – Feb 1, 2025
Images courtesy of Takaishii Gallery and the artist.
In “Only Yesterdays,” Murase’s latest monochromatic paintings series, the artist explores single-color fields into an evocative dialogue between the tangible and the ephemeral. Murase’s brushwork, described as akin to “weaving fabric,” generates a rhythm across the canvas that feels almost tactile. The soft undulations of her strokes suggest not just physical surfaces but a crawling, searching motion, as if the artist is groping for the intangible. Textured expanses seem to hover between the material and immaterial, where sensations like wind, light, and sound become just as palpable as the canvas itself.
These works thrive in their contradictions. On the one hand, Murase’s monochromes are serenely minimal, yet they vibrate with life through their interplay of brushstroke, density, and light. In one canvas, the faint suggestion of a ripple evokes flowing water, while in another, subtle gradations of hue conjure the flicker of dappled sunlight. The paintings offer a sense of stillness, yet they feel imbued with time’s passage—a theme underscored by the layered metaphor of the mille-feuille in Murase’s accompanying text. Each stratum, whether a physical element of a landscape or an intangible impression, gently shifts and recomposes itself like a memory.
Pond and Leaves is a striking exploration of blue as both a color and a mood. The intricate composition captures a lush, overgrown scene of tropical flora, with a delicate figure standing poised at its center. The figure, perched atop a pedestal in a reflective pool, evokes an otherworldly stillness, blending innocence with an air of mystery. The meticulous brushwork in various shades of blue creates a sense of depth and texture, inviting the viewer to trace the organic flow of foliage and water. The use of a monochromatic palette heightens the dreamlike quality, making this work feel simultaneously timeless and fleeting—much like a memory or a whispered secret from nature.
What’s most compelling is how Murase transforms monochromatic fields into a theater of presence and absence. Her paintings operate as windows into her sensibility, where the familiar—potted plants, a stream, a cherry blossom—coexist with the fleeting and the unseen. The result is not simply an evocation of place but an invitation to inhabit it, to feel its textures, hear its silences, and sense its impermanence. Murase’s quiet mastery lies in her ability to take us beyond what we see into what we feel.
